Illinois College student receives Fulbright scholarship

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, May 2, 2018

An Illinois College senior has received a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship that will enable him to travel and study abroad in Brazil.

Christian Flores, 22, a native of Addison, found out he had received the scholarship during class. It took everything he could muster to contain himself when he read the email telling him he had been awarded the competitive scholarship.

“I had to step out, I was very excited,” Flores said. “It helped that in the same class my three closest friends were there. As soon as I dropped my phone and said, ‘Oh my god,’ they knew.”

The Fulbright program is a competitive, merit-based scholarship and grant program that allows students to travel abroad for study and research. To receive a scholarship, applicants must display high academic achievement and leadership potential.

A triple major in history, political science and Spanish, Flores, who expects to graduate this month from IC, has been heavily involved with IC’s Leadership Program, completed multiple student-faculty research projects alongside IC faculty, and has presented research at national conferences across the country.

This will not be his first time abroad, either. He has studied in Buenos Aires, Argentina; traveled to Puerto Rico with IC’s Alternative Spring Break Program; and intends to travel to Cuba on another IC trip and to Japan to participate in research through a Henry Luce Foundation grant.

The Fulbright scholarship will enable him to travel to Brazil in 2019. Although he doesn’t know where, specifically, he will be in Brazil, he’s excited to teach English in a country that speaks a language with which he isn’t wholly familiar, he said.

“Portuguese, I have a very basic proficiency, so it’s a little nerve-wracking that I’ll be going to a country where I don’t speak the language. But I’m excited to learn,” Flores said. “The reason I chose Brazil is because I wanted to really learn a third language, to learn the region a little better.

“I want to go into a career in international relations with a regional concentration in Latin America. This really opens the door for me to really be able to understand Brazil and I think moving forward this is one thing that will really distinguish me from others going into the regional studies in Latin America.”

Flores said his time at Illinois College really helped him branch out and discover his passion for assisting people of countries around the world.

“Coming here really showed me I could literally do anything I wanted,” he said. “It really made the world a smaller place, for me.”

Nick Draper can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1223, or on Twitter @nick_draper.